


Bouquets Between his Bones

by Ghoststar



Category: Cobra Kai (Web Series), Karate Kid (Movies)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Amicable Exes Daniel & Amanda, Angst with a Happy Ending, Background Relationships, Canon Parallel, Canonical Character Death, Cobra Kai Kink Meme, Coughing, Denial of Feelings, Hanahaki Disease, Heavy Angst, Hospitals, It's Not Unrequited Love That Kills You, It's the Unwillingness or Inability to Admit & Express Love That Does, Longing, Love Confessions, M/M, Medical Inaccuracies, Minor Character Death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining, Post-Season/Series 03, Repression, Self-Destructive Behavior, Trope Subversion, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, canon warnings apply
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-18 13:08:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29244084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghoststar/pseuds/Ghoststar
Summary: He thought it was Ali at first.-Johnny's been dealing with Hanahaki Disease for thirty years. He can't put off dealing with it forever.
Relationships: Bobby Brown & Johnny Lawrence, Daniel LaRusso/Johnny Lawrence, Johnny Lawrence & Original Cobra Kai Students
Comments: 14
Kudos: 93





	Bouquets Between his Bones

**Author's Note:**

> Based on this prompt from the CKKM: 
> 
> Johnny starts to have feelings for Daniel but tries to repress them until his body says no and he gets Hanahaki disease. Cue to him hiding it and pining until it nearly kills him and he is forced to tell
> 
> +Bonus if it transitions from KK to CK, progressing slowly, maybe going into remission in the years apart, before hitting like train.

He thought it was Ali at first. It made sense in a way that the truth didn’t. They had been together for two years, high school sweethearts that everyone thought would be together forever. The jock and the cheerleader who would get married right out of high school, who would settle down and pop out a few kids within a few years, who would live on Daddy’s money and eat at the country club twice a week and would do every little thing expected of an Encino brat. The part they leave out of that story is them growing old and bitter together, hating each other for all their missed chances, for all the almosts they never had, and their kids would grow up in a great big house with frost hanging between their parents at every dinner.

It wasn’t Ali though.

Why couldn’t it have been Ali?

-

It started in November. No, that’s not true. It started in August, on a beach, where a boy looked at him and made him feel things he didn’t want to feel. But when he looked back on it, he remembered November.

It was a lot of small things at first. It was the soccer field. It was hip checks in the hallway and slamming of locker doors. It was looking up and seeing him standing in the doorway of the dojo and feeling completely unsurprised to find him there, the first and the second time. It was the way he kept getting back up and fighting back and dragging Johnny down with him every chance he got. It was months in the making.

The ache started small. A little pinch between his ribs, like a stitch he got sometimes after training, but this one never fully went away. He thought it was because of one of Bobby’s kicks or maybe not stretching enough before training. Maybe he was training too hard for the All Valley, his mind never far from the fight with LaRusso that was inching closer every day. The one he never said he was looking forward to, the one that plague his mind late at night. He was always wondering, always trying to imagine it. Always worrying that LaRusso was going to fuck up during the elimination rounds, that their promised fight was never even going to happen.

It was those nights the ache was a little stronger, a little more prominent. He would roll on his side, one hand tucked under his ribs, and fall asleep reliving their fight on the beach and trying to imagine what it would have been like if LaRusso knew how to fight back. What it would have been like if it was just the two of them and LaRusso managed to get him down in the sand next to him, the two of them forgetting every bit of training they had and just wrestling to pin the other down, to get the upper hand.

Some nights, half drunk on whatever Dutch had managed to pilfer from his parents wine cellar, he’d wonder what would have happened if LaRusso hadn’t been on the beach that night. If they would have passed each other without a glance, without the shadow of Ali cast over them, without a black eye and a busted nose between them. Would LaRusso have eventually walked into Cobra Kai, like he had that one time, looking to learn? Would he have become one of them?

He drifted on the thought, half dreaming of a world where LaRusso fought by his side. Where they sparred fiercely and when it was over could laugh about the bruises, the pain blossoming in their knuckles, in their feet. Where they could leave Cobra Kai in the evening and be something close to friends.

In the morning light he scoffed at the dreams and tucked them away somewhere dark and quiet inside himself, the same place he tucked all the strange and outlandish things that Daniel LaRusso made him think.

-

The ache hadn’t faded by the end of November. He spent the week of Thanksgiving taking a break from karate, easing up on his daily sprints and training that Kreese had assigned them all. He stayed tucked away in his room, away from Sid’s bitching voice and his mother’s soft placating, listening to a tape he mixed in his car the Friday before. He left the phone off the hook and the door locked, even against his mother’s coaxing for him to come down and eat with the  _ family. _

By Monday, the ache was pressing against his ribs and he was starting to get worried. He went to school and his eyes followed Ali, followed LaRusso who was never far behind. During pre-cal, he watched them duck their heads together, talking over problems and solutions, and felt a tickle build at the back of his throat. The tickle spread as the day wore on, scratching the back of his throat like a cold in the making.

The coughing hit him after school, waiting in the parking lot for the guys to get their asses in gear. His eyes found the two of them, cozy as two peas, and grit his teeth as the coughing shakes him. Something gets lodged in his throat and he swallows, eyes watering, and when he finally catches his breath, Ali and LaRusso are gone and the itch had faded.

-

Moving into December, the coughing came and went with such infrequency that Johnny never seemed to peg it down. Later allergies, maybe, or acid reflux maybe. The ache remained in his chest, prickling every now and again. The doctor, when he finally broke down enough to go, didn’t even listen to his chest.

“Sounds like costochondritis.” He said and hit him with a prescription for steroids that made Johnny jittering and sick to his stomach and solved nothing at all.

As the tournament drew near, it seemed to get worse. The ache spread from his sternum to his ribs, from collar to diaphragm. The night they ran into Ali and LaRusso at Golf N Stuff, he cut the night short and headed home, chest clenching tight. The coughing fit lasted far longer than the last, even with the steam of the shower wafting over his face, even with menthol on his tongue.

It was the night at the country club though when it all came crashing home. When it moved from odd occurrence to an actual problem. He had coaxed Ali into dancing, her nails half digging into his shoulder. He looked over her head and there LaRusso was, watching them from the kitchen. He hadn’t looked away, not until the last second when he tipped his head and pressed a kiss to Ali’s mouth. She shoved him away, but he only had eyes for LaRusso scrambling to his feet and disappearing. Ali hit him hard enough for his teeth to cut the inside of his mouth, hard enough to taste blood, smiling despite himself.

He had excused himself to the bathroom, grinning too hard to be proper, knowing that Sid was going to have a field day with this fiasco, knowing a dressing down was in his future and unable to find it in himself to care. It was worth it, just to see LaRusso’s eyes on him, big and dark, unable to look away as Johnny danced with Ali. Johnny had just wanted to spit the blood out of his mouth, to wipe the taste of Ali’s chapstick off. Instead, the ache sharpened, steadied like a needle sinking into his lung, feeling thick enough to pop it like a balloon.

The coughing started before he managed to get the door shut, followed him into the stall closest to the door. That feeling of something coming up, of something lodging in his throat hit and he gagged. With a cough hard enough to dislodge something, whatever it was came loose. He grabbed some toilet paper and spit.

The flower petal stared back.

-

It was Ali. It had to be Ali. It couldn’t be anyone  _ other than Ali _ .

Please, God, let it be Ali.

-

Johnny wracked his brain, trying to figure it out as the days following passed in a blur. There weren’t anymore petals, or coughing, but the ache lingered as it had for nearly two months. When had it really started? The night they broke up? When LaRusso came into the picture and stole her away? Johnny wasn’t over her, but he was pretty sure the whole world knew that. He wasn’t  _ hiding  _ it, he was being pretty damn obvious. He had kissed her for fuck’s sake.

It had to be a fluke. Maybe kissing her had killed whatever was growing inside him and that was just a piece he had needed to cough up. Maybe the ache was just left over injuries from the flowers growing in his lungs.

He didn’t understand why it had happened- it was so fucking pathetic that he missed his ex so much he was ill with it- but it had to be over. He’d made his move, said all he needed to, and now his feelings could die and he could move on. It was fine, Johnny was fine. Johnny just needed to focus on the tournament and put all this behind him. That was what he needed to do.

And if the petal didn’t wilt, if it stayed pristine and perfect from where it sat, accusing him from the bottom of his desk drawer, Johnny refused to notice. He refused to look. He kept it locked and pretended it was over. Because it was. It had to be.

-

Johnny wasn’t fine. He was distracted and slow, taking hits he could have easily dodged and missing openings he hadn’t since he had first started. Everyone could tell he was off and Kreese wasn’t about to let up until Johnny got his ass into gear. The tournament was two days away and Kreese had stakes in it that he wasn’t willing to lose. The man had pride, pride in his students and his dojo and his ability to teach, and it was all on the line.

By the end of the lesson Johnny was a little closer to normal, even if his body was throbbing with bruises that weren’t going to fade before the tournament. Bobby was looking at him oddly, concern clear on his face. He had heard about the country club- all his friends had heard about it- and he hadn’t stopped pestering Johnny about that night since.

Johnny just wanted to go home, to listen to some music, and creep closer to all this being over. Kicking LaRusso’ ass was just over the horizon, was the last hurdle to overcome, and then he was home free. It was the finish line and he was so damn close.

“Johnny,” Kreese called and Johnny froze up, shoes still halfway on.

“Yes, Sensei?” Johnny asked.

“My office,” he said and walked away.

“What’s going on?” Bobby whispered, crouched down next to Johnny to pull his shoes on.

“No idea,” Johnny grunted, kicking his shoes back off. He stood, shrugging off his friends questions and their promises to wait for him outside.

Kreese’s office was in the back, behind the mirror walls. His office was a small room tucked next to the bathroom and surrounded by storage shelves where they kept the rarely used equipment. The concrete was cold beneath Johnny’s socked feet and the chill settled in the heels of his feet, in the pit of his stomach. It was heavy in his chest.

Kreese’s office door was closed, but he called Johnny inside when he knocked. Johnny stepped inside, lingering at the threshold.

“Shut the door, Johnny,” Kreese said and Johnny did.

Kreese’s office was dark, even with the lights buzzing overhead. Students weren’t normally allowed inside, Kreese always preferring to have an audience. Kreese’s office always felt too personal, photos of war buddies on the walls, filing cabinets like a second thought. Kreese had told them stories about the war, sometimes more than parents were comfortable with. They were too bloody, too awful for the youngest kids but Kreese was never one to pull a punch. Johnny didn’t flinch at them anymore, not like he had the first time Kreese described watching a friend’s brain splatter across the forest floor or the feeling of killing a man. Some people would call Johnny desensitized, but he preferred acclimatized.

“You wanted to talk to me, Sensei?” Johnny asked, shifting his feet apart.

“I did.” Kreese said. He was sitting behind his desk, a cigar in hand. He didn’t smoke often, not liking it clung to the mirrors, to the mats. He kept it outside or in the back. Kreese cut off the tip, returning the cigar cutter in a drawer. He lit the cigar and sat back, watching Johnny through the curling smoke that rose.

Johnny felt sweat start to gather at his temples, the pit growing in his stomach. He fought not to fidget, to remain rooted to the spot. He breathed and it felt like he was giving something away, like he was showing too much.  _ Don’t think about,  _ he thought, but it was the only thing that had been on his mind. It had been cycling over and over, his mind a record caught in a scratch.

_ Please be Ali, please be Ali, please be Ali.  _ His thoughts kept threatening to shift, threatening to betray him, and every time they slipped he drew Ali back to mind, clinging to the memory of her smile, to the shine of her eyes, to the hurt when she had dumped him that night. That was what he needed to think about, that was all there was to it. He just had to think of her and everything was going to be fine.

He exhaled and coughed, his hand too show to smother the sound, shoulders hitching up around his ears.

“Ah,” Kreese said and stood.

Johnny stiffened, eyes threatening to water as he stared hard at the floor. He hadn’t coughed up another petal, but the fear permeated everything. It was just a cough, nothing more, but what if it  _ wasn’t? _

“Did I ever tell you about my girl?” Kreese asked and pulled Johnny back to the moment, to the smoke coiling around them like snakes settling over Johnny’s shoulders.

“No, sir,” Johnny answered, dropping his hand away from his mouth. He folded his hands behind his back, clinging to his other wrist as his throat itched.

Kreese went to a cabinet, hand dipping inside and pulling out a box. It was metal and green, something likely from is time in the army, but Johnny couldn’t be sure. He brought it to the desk and flipped it open. There were pictures inside and other things, medals and bits and bobs that Johnny couldn’t nap. A knife, a patch, a pair of  _ teeth _ . At the bottom was a letter and beneath that a woman’s photo.

“Here she is,” Kreese said. “My Betsy. Prettiest girl I ever saw. She promised to wait for me when I got shipped out.”

Johnny took a step forward, drawn closer despite himself. Betsy was pretty in that kind of dated way, looking watching an old movie. Johnny glanced between the photo and Kreese, unsure what to say, what do do.

“Did she?”

“She died,” Kreese said shortly.

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“People die and people leave. It’s a fact of life, Johnny. You get use to it eventually.” Kreese put the photo away, closing the box with a snap.

Johnny dropped his eyes. He thought of his father, for just a moment, a man he had never known who had walked out the door before he was born and never came back. He wasn’t even a face in a photograph, just a name his mother hadn’t said in years. He had told Kreese about him at some point, though he no longer remember when.

“Knew a few guys who couldn’t,” Kreese continued. “Started sprouting like spring daises. You know what we did to those guys, Johnny?”

Johnny felt cold and clammy, hands slick was sweat. “No, sir.”

“We put them up front. When they got blown apart, at least they left pretty flowers behind. The rest of them learned very quickly how to get it under control. You understand, don’t you, Johnny?”

Johnny squeezed his eyes shut and nodded. When he opened them, Kreese was watching him. “Yes, sir.”

Kreese smiled. “Now, get your head out of your ass. We’ve got a tournament to win.”

Johnny nodded and fixed a smile on his face. “Yes, Sensei.”

Kreese reached out, settling his hand on Johnny’s shoulder. He gave it a squeeze and Johnny fought not to flinch. Kreese must have forgotten that Dutch had landed a good hit there. The touch since pain flaring all down Johnny’s arm, but Johnny bore it as Kreese said, “I know you won’t let me down.”

“I won’t, Sensei.”

“Good,” He let Johnny go and Johnny felt a swell of pride flicker to life at his confidence. “Remember what I said. Now go on. Your friends are waiting.”

“Yes, Sensei.” Johnny said.

“Johnny,” Kreese called before he walked out the door. “She’s probably sleeping with LaRusso by now anyway. You’re better off without her.”

Johnny clenched his teeth against the itching, rustling burn building in his chest, in the back of his throat. He forced out, “yes, Sensei,” before he walked out the door. He made it to the front, to his shoes, before he couldn’t stand it anymore.

He caught the petal between his teeth, unwilling to let risk it getting out. He swallowed it down and felt sick. The fear was rising inside him and Kreese’s words hadn’t done a damn thing to sooth them.

He had to get this under control. He just had to get through this fight and then everything was going to be  _ fine. _

-

The fight burned itself into his mind. Every moment searing itself there. The hit, the sweep, the way petals stuck to the back of Johnny’s throat as he sank his elbow into LaRusso’s knee, how he could taste them as he pushed himself to his feet after the crane kick. The moment he pressed the trophy into LaRusso’s hands, fingers grazing, Johnny’s hand raising to grab onto his shoulder and falling away.

The fight remained on his mind for a very long time. That, and all the things that came after.

-

The day after the fight, Ali showed up at his door. Johnny almost shut the door in her face, almost locked it too. Instead, he stepped back, allowing her inside, and feeling like he was dying just a little inside.

She was wearing pink, hair pushed back with a headband he didn’t recognize. She looked soft and sweet and he remembered the feeling of her fist against his face. She wasn’t looking at him, but his neck, something sad in her eyes.

“I heard about what happened. I wanted to make sure you were alright.”

“I’m fine. Why are you here?” He demanded, but his voice was thin and reedy, throat so sore he hadn’t even been eating. It wasn’t the choking that had done it, but the petals that had come after, coughed into a trash can by the side of the road. He had gagged on them, mind on the fight, on LaRusso’s face, on the half step he had taken towards him, on his eyes eyes through the window as he and his sensei drove away.

“You said something about a truce,” Ali said and laid a hand on his arm. “Maybe it’s time to put this all behind us.”

Her hand was gentle, her mouth down turned. She had hugged LaRusso at the tournament, arms around his neck, a kiss pressed against his cheek. They were together, everyone said they were. Whatever fight had happened that night, at the country club, had been resolved.

Her favorite color was been purple, wasn’t it? She had told him that once, a long time ago. The flowers were for her. They had to be.

“I love you,” Johnny blurted out and watched the way her face shuttered. Her hand fell away and he rushed to finish before she could say a word. “I haven’t gotten over you and I haven’t moved on and I need you to know that I still love you.”

Ali took a step back. “You’re so full of shit, Johnny,” Ali said and it hurt more than the blow to the face. It was excruciating, but it was exactly what he needed to hear. An answer that would set the flowers to withering, would leave his chest empty, and him breathing easy.

But nothing happened. He waited a beat, another, and nothing changed. Ali was talking, but his ears felt like they had water in them. He was sinking and everything on the surface seemed warbling and wrong as the feeling set in.

He had told her and nothing had changed.

_ It wasn’t Ali. _

Ali slammed out of the house, leaving him reeling and alone. He stared after the girl he had loved once and tried to figure out when it had faded. When someone else had usurped her place in his heart. He tried to think and couldn’t.

_ It wasn’t Ali. _

Johnny grasped at her image, a fading gossamer shield, and felt it crumble.

_ If it wasn’t Ali- _

_ No. No, no, no. _

He sat on the stairs, put his head in his hands, and tried not to scream.

-

Why couldn’t it have been Bobby? Or Tommy or Jimmy or even Dutch _?  _ Why couldn’t it have been one of Ali’s friends or the hot girl that worked at Pizza hut? It could have been the mail man or the pool guy or anyone in the world. Why did it have to be  him who it was?

(Because if it had been anyone else Johnny wouldn’t be ashamed to love them. He wouldn’t have been scared of rejection, wouldn’t have been grinding flower petals between his teeth and swallowing the pulp to keep it hidden. He would have admitted it to their faces and let the flowers wither in his chest. Even if they didn’t love him back, even if nothing changed, he would have been free of this agony of pining for someone he would never let himself have, longing for someone that would never love him back.

Johnny wouldn’t be pressing the feeling down, wouldn’t be lying to himself so convincingly that he mistook the target, mistook the reasons. If it had been anyone else in the world, Johnny Lawrence wouldn’t be coughing up flower petals.

If it was anyone else, he would have let himself love them.)

**Author's Note:**

> 💐💐💐
> 
> Shoutout to indecisive-behaviors for listening to me ramble about this fic the past two weeks and convincing me to split it into chapters. (It's getting out of hand lol.) Check out her fics if you want some serotonin because we're still 3 decades away here, but we'll get there in the end.


End file.
